xref: /netbsd-src/distrib/notes/vax/xfer (revision 1394f01b4a9e99092957ca5d824d67219565d9b5)
1Installation is supported from several media types, including:
2	* Tape
3	* NFS
4	* Floppy
5	* FTP
6
7Note that installing on a "bare" machine requires some bootable
8device; either a tape or floppy drive or Sun-compatible NFS server
9with MOP capabilities. (Yes, NetBSD/vax uses the same netboot
10principles as Sun's does).
11
12The procedure for transferring the distribution sets onto
13installation media depends on the type of media. The most is up to
14you, depending what you want to install, but preferred are to do
15the installation over network as soon as the miniroot is installed.
16
17* Creating boot tapes:
18
19Fetch the two files from .../NetBSD-1.3/vax/tk50. Write them onto
20the tape, first file1 and then file2. Under Ultrix this is done
21just like this:
22
23	mt -f /dev/rmt0h rewind
24	dd if=tk50-file1-1.3 of=/dev/nrmt0h
25	dd if=tk50-file2-1.3 of=/dev/rmt0h
26	mt -f /dev/rmt0h rewoffl
27
28Under NetBSD this is done the same way, except for the tape name:
29
30	mt -f /dev/rmt8 rewind
31	dd if=tk50-file1-1.3 of=/dev/nrmt8
32	dd if=tk50-file2-1.3 of=/dev/rmt8
33	mt -f /dev/rmt8 rewoffl
34
35Of course, if you have another tape unit than 0 you have to use
36the corresponding unit number.
37
38If you are using any other OS to create bootable tapes, remember that
39the blocksize _must_ be 512 for the file to be bootable! Otherwise it
40just won't work.
41
42* Creating boot floppies:
43
44Fetch the files from .../NetBSD-1.3/vax/rx{50,33} depending of which
45floppy you have. There are three or seven files depending of the
46density of your floppies. Then just write the floppies using dd (under
47Unix, if you are creating floppies from DOS use some nice utility
48for that). There are one bootable floppy and a splitted miniroot image.
49
50* Booting from NFS server:
51
52All VAXen that can boot over network uses MOP, a DEC protocol.
53To be able to use MOP, a MOP daemon must be present on one of
54the machines on the local network. The boot principle is:
55	* The VS2000 broadcast a wish to load an image.
56	* A mopd answers and send the boot program to the VAX.
57	* The boot program does rarp requests, mounts the root filesystem
58	    and loads the kernel.
59	* The kernel is loaded and starts executing.
60
61If your machine has a disk and network connection, it may be
62convenient for you to install NetBSD over the network.  This
63involves temporarily booting your machine over NFS, just long enough
64so you can initialize its disk.  This method requires that you have
65access to an NFS server on your network so you can configure it to
66support diskless boot for your machine.  Configuring the NFS server
67is normally a task for a system administrator, and is not trivial.
68
69If you are using a NetBSD system as the boot-server, have a look at
70the diskless(8) manual page for guidelines on how to proceed with
71this.  If the server runs another operating system, consult the
72documentation that came with it (i.e. add_client(8) on SunOS).
73
74You also must install a MOP loader. If you are booting from another
75NetBSD machine, MOP are included in the distribution, otherwise you
76may have to install a MOP loader. A loader can be found at
77ftp.stacken.kth.se:/pub/OS/NetBSD/mopd. Fetch the latest and read the
78installation instructions.
79
80The file that should be loaded are called boot and are located in
81.../NetBSD-1.3/vax/install. If you are not using the mopd written
82by Mats O Jansson (as the NetBSD are) then you should get the file
83boot.mopformat instead.
84
85The miniroot to start from is the one called miniroot.tar.gz located
86also in the install directory. Fetch it, unzip and untar it wherever
87you have your root filesystem.
88